THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY

By: George W. Baldwin, PGM

Grand Lodge of British
Columbia

This Short Talk Bulletin has been adapled from a speech
given at the Grand Lodge of Alaska in February, 1987, by M.W. Brolher George W.
Baldwin, Pasl Grand Masler, Grand Lodge of British Columbia. We thank M.W.
Brother Baldwin for sharing these "cross the border" thoughts with us.

This year, 1987, marks the 200th anniversary
of the drafting and ratification of the United States Constitution by those
thirteen former colonies, which eleven years earlier had joined in their
Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Incidentally, there were
those other American colonies in existence at that time, which chose to remain
loyal, and of course, they laid the foundation from which Canada, the largest,
geographically speaking, democratic nation in the world developed. I want to
draw your attention to those events of 1787, and in particular, to some of the
language used.

The Preamble to the Constitution is a masterpiece of
concise writing, and is generally believed to have been the work of Gouverneur
Morris, a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Constitutional Convention. Even
though you may be well ac-quainted with it, let me read it to you again: "We the
people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish
justice, insure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States."

I would ask you to pay particular attention to the
phrase, "to secure the blessing of liberty." I do not want to dwell at length on
what those blessings are, or attempt to find a definition for them, for I think
that each one of us, if so asked, would produce a different list. Perhaps Thomas
Jefferson came as close as any, to a satisfactory definition, when he wrote, in
the Declaration of July 4, 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness."

But how are those rights to be "secured"? The
Constitution, as originally drafted, did not spell out any particular rights,
nor any rules for securing them. The first ten amendments, known ever after as
"The Bill of Rights," were not proposed until 1789, nor adopted until 1791.1
mention this, because it is of importance to us as Freemasons, that likewise
there is not mention made of any duties or responsibilities, insofar as the
individual citizen is concerned, either in the Constitution or the Bill of
Rights, or, for that matter, in the Canadian Constitution and its Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. My proposition tonight is that those rights, that our
freedoms, that the blessings of liberty can only be secured when the in-dividual
citizen recognizes and acts upon his or her own sense of duty and
responsibility.

I also venture to suggest that this is in direct accord
with the principles of Freemasonry. To illustrate this, let me share with you
part of our Canadian masonic ritual, where we are told that the chief point in
Freemasonry is "to endeavor to be happy ourselves, and to communicate that
happiness to others." In this sentence, the word "happiness" must be taken in
the wider mean-ing of the 18th century and coincides with the meaning
used by Jefferson.

We are also taught in our Canadian ritual, that the
ritual is intended to carry into active practice the four cardinal virtues:
Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice, combined with the theological
virtues—Faith, Hope and Charity-thereby demonstrating to the world at large that
in Freemasonry there is found the true import of the three great social
treasures:

Fraternity, Liberty and Equality.

Let us turn for a moment to consider the men who sat in
their hot stuffy meeting room in Philadelphia throughout that summer of 1787.
The presiding officer of the Convention was Bro. George Washington. I am sure
that when he considered "securing the blessings of liberty," he had no illusions
as to his responsibilities. He had amply demonstrated, over the preceding 10 or
11 years, that he was prepared to contribute his all to the cause of liberty as
he saw it. Yet, he was a reasonably prosperous land-owner in Virginia, he was
well connected with the aristocracy and governing class in that Commonwealth,
and he could quite easily and justifiably have remained at home in Mount Vernon
that summer, and let some one else do the work for a change. But such was not
his nature. As a patriot and as a Freemason, he saw where his duty lay, and he
took up the responsibility of seeing that the blessings of liberty were secured
to his fellow countrymen, not only in Virginia, but throughout the new nation
that was then being created. It is interesting to note that for a time,
Washington seriously considered not attending the Convention in Philadelphia
that summer long ago, for very valid political reasons, but he was ultimately
persuaded to attend by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Edmund Randolph, and
by his especial friend, General Henry Knox.

Another Freemason who could easily have been excused from
attendance at the Convention, on account of age and health, was Bro. Benjamin
Franklin of Pennsylvania. He was then over 70 years old, within three years of
his own death, and had certainly proved his loyalty to the cause of liberty,
over and over again. He suffered from gout and stone, and had to come to
the State House, where the Convention met, in a sedan chair which he had bought
in Paris, as it was the only mode of transportation that did not jostle him
painfully. Yet, he came, because he knew it was his duty to do so. And we should
all remember that it was Franklin, early in the Convention, when it seemed that
the rival factions from the different colonies would never reach any basis for
agreement, moved that every morning the session be opened by prayer to the Most
High for His guidance. Franklin's duty lay not only to his fellow citizens, but
to his Maker, and he saw that prayer to God was the first step to be taken in
securing the blessings of liberty. These are just two examples. I am sure there
are many more, but I use these to point up that the absence of any mention of
"duty" in the Constitution was not an oversight. It just did not occur to men
such as Washington and Franklin, as well as the others there present, that the
rest of us needed to have it spelled out for us.

When the Consitution had been drafted, it was sent to the
Continental Congress, accompanied by a letter, written in the hand of Morris,
but signed by Washington. In it, Morris wrote:

"Individuals entering into society, must give up a share
of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as
well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at
all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which
must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved."

So, let us now ask where we stand in 1987, and what we,
each one of us, is doing to secure the blessings of liberty. Which of our rights
are we prepared to surrender in order to preserve our freedom? Or, in other
words, what duty will we assume and discharge, in order to secure the blessings
of liberty? Let us not forget the duties which we assumed when we entered the
bonds of Freemasonry, the duties which we owe to God, to our countries, and to
ourselves. We discharge those duties, and so secure the blessings of liberty,
when we set about to practice those cardinal and theological virtues which I
mentioned earlier. We secure those blessings not only for ourselves, but for our
whole nation, yours and mine, by the manner in which we act as citizens, as
individuals, as children of a common Father, and as brethren one of another.

I would like to leave you with a little poem that was
recently printed in Ann Landers' column in our local newspaper in Prince George.
It was attributed to an 88-year old resident of the Masonic Homes at
Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and is entitled "Definition of a Real Man"—

One who has self-confidence but does not show it;

One who can be courteous in the face of discourtesy;

One who keeps his word, his temper, his friends;

One who wins respect by being respectable and respectful;

One who has a steady eye, a steady nerve, a steady
tongue, and steady habits;

One who is silent when he has nothing to say;

One who is calm when he judges, and humble when he
misjudges.

May I suggest to each of you, that if we take that poem
to heart, that if we accept and discharge our duties and responsibilities in
this world, that if we live by the principles of our Masonic order, then we may
join in spirit with Washington, Franklin, Morris, and those others who laboured
throughout that hot Philadelphia summer 200 years ago, to secure the blessings
of liberty for ourselves and for our posterity.